


you can’t have the bad guys without a hero (and i’m the only one who’s got a cape)

by sebphy



Series: departures [2]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/F, If they went to Bly together on the last day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:20:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29163300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebphy/pseuds/sebphy
Summary: 392 days, it’s been, of cowering away from reflections for the sake of everyone but her, and Dani Clayton is tired.She is tired of living — if you can even call it that — only to lose grip on reality more and more every day, clinging frantically to the few memories she has that aren’t lakes and chests and missing daughters.[ — ]June 2000. Dani wakes up paralysed.This is it, then.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Series: departures [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138610
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	you can’t have the bad guys without a hero (and i’m the only one who’s got a cape)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired (with consent) by @pwbsupremacy on twitter 
> 
> “ au where jamie accepted that dani had to leave and they had the conversation and went back to bly together and had a proper goodbye “
> 
> this is somewhat a continuation of my last work (“you’re not even gonna leave me a note?”) but you don’t have to have read it for this.

392 days, it’s been, of cowering away from reflections for the sake of everyone but her, and Dani Clayton is tired. 

She is tired of living — if you can even call it that — only to lose grip on reality more and more every day, clinging frantically to the few memories she has that aren’t lakes and chests and missing daughters.

Despite how easy it had been to fall back into her usual rhythm of life after Jamie had found her, bags packed, on the way out of their door for the last time that brilliantly sunny day, there was an obvious underlying dread neither of the women wanted to address. It had to be said, they’d become spectacular at nonverbal communication over the years, in both serious and amusing situations.

So, 392 days later, when Dani Clayton wakes up and can’t move her limbs, there seems to be understanding in the air. Admittedly, it only taints the dust particles of their cramped bedroom after the initial panic of Jamie waking up to Dani’s raw, wheezing sobs, after Jamie has hooked an arm around her wife and hauled her gently into a sitting position against the headboard.

The panic begins to ease away, and it is followed by the most uncomfortable quiet either woman has every experienced, punctuated every so often by Dani’s uncertain cries. 

“Jamie.”

Dani is breathing again. She’s breathing, but it doesn’t feel like it. Her arms and legs closely resemble that of a rag doll rather than a living human being.

“Shh. It’s okay.”

“It’s not, though.” Dani is crying again. Crying because her body is paralysed and her mind doesn’t feel like it belongs to her anymore, and because the love of her life has to see her like this, unable to move, unable to _be._

There is something rising in Jamie’s chest that she forces down. She refuses to cry, not when Dani is almost lifeless in her arms, the only hint of the woman she loves most in those shameless blue eyes and the shuddering breaths against her arm. 

“Jamie. I— we— we have to go.”

Jamie isn’t paralysed, and she twists her head sharply, eyes flashing.

“You don’t mean...?” She knows, though, deep down, exactly what Dani’s talking about, and she knows Dani has been thinking about these words for longer than just this morning. Jamie can hear the resolution in her voice, although timid, and for once she really, really wishes she couldn’t. 

“I do. I— you know. I almost strangled you.”

“You didn’t, though.” Jamie, for all her efforts, can’t keep the helplessness out of her voice.

“I didn’t. And now I’m paralysed.”

Dani points this out in such a matter-of-fact way that it takes Jamie a moment to recognise the words actually left her mouth rather than simply being a figment of her imagination.

There is movement, after that, in the form of bedsheets shifting and Jamie sliding her legs down the edge of the mattress, before shuffling to Dani’s side of the bed and helping her further. Sliding bare hands under bare legs and gently pulling pale calves down the side of the mattress, carefully supporting Dani’s back to ensure she doesn’t topple backwards.

They sit, side by side, Jamie’s hands on Dani’s shoulders, for what feels like an eternity. The gravity of the situation has not appeared to sink in to either of the women’s heads entirely.

Jamie sighs.

“Do you want a glass of water?”

::

There’s something about knowing the day will come that your wife will die sooner than perhaps normal that Jamie has struggled with over the years. It isn’t a lack of feeling towards the situation. It is more a forced acceptance. The feeling of having to be OK with it for her sake. For Dani’s.

Jamie clings on to this as she lies Dani gently on their bed and slips shaking fingers under the cotton of her sleep shirt before sliding it carefully from her shoulders.

She clings on to it as she lifts Dani’s legs yet again only to pull the hem of the deep red dress — Dani’s choice, naturally — down soft thighs, tears that she refuses to let fall prickling relentlessly at the backs of her eyes.

Dani is beautiful. Always, but now. Even now. Especially now.

They don’t call Owen. They don’t talk to anyone. That day, Dani and Jamie spend the portion of it they still have holding each other. It was inevitable, Jamie recognises, that this would happen. And it was inevitable that holding Dani would be the only thing keeping her afloat. She cries, finally, in the early afternoon. Dani’s head is balanced on her chest as her tears sink into her wife’s golden hair.

This is _it,_ Jamie realises, the finality of it all hitting her like a freight train as she sobs and sobs and sobs, and now Dani is crying too, struggling to keep herself upright with her uncooperative limbs.

“I’m going to miss you,” Jamie manages to get out amongst heaves, and she is aware of the simplicity of the sentence, but Dani is Dani and she understands that’s all she can manage.

“Hey. Jamie. Help me up?”

Jamie complies, sniffing, hauling Dani to a sitting position as gently as she can whilst shaking so hard she feels like her heart has created an earthquake within her.

With the final, unwilting strength in her soul, Dani lifts a limp hand, brings it to Jamie’s tear-stained cheekbone.

“It’s always been you,” she whispers, and her hand falls.

::

It is certainly a manoeuvre, carrying Dani down the stairs of their apartment and in to the back of the taxi. Dani, who is blinking fearfully right into Jamie’s heart, too scared to be embarrassed. She knows — they both know — that these will be the last few hours they have together, once they are on the plane. And whilst Jamie manages to keep it together in the back of the taxi with Dani leaning solemnly on her shoulder, breath tickling her neck, she does not succeed as well once they have actually reached the point of flying.

Her crippling phobia of aeroplanes is not helped by the very real fact that her extremely paralysed wife is in the seat next to her, having been assisted by two flight attendants with kind eyes and soft smiles, and their destination is... well. Their destination is final. 

Their destination is final and it is the end and they arrive too soon. Dani barely registers the transition from plane to taxi to Jamie’s arms staring up at that godforsaken manor until they are _there_ and _Oh God_ she is about to give up.

She says as much to Jamie, who ignores the stream of tears sprinting down her own cheeks to reassure her “You’re not giving up. Dani. In the thirteen years we have known each other, this is the bravest thing you’ve ever done.”

“You’re pretty brave too,” Dani whispers, and Jamie recognises the truth in that statement. Jamie is brave for carrying her wife across the world when the only thing she wants to do is tuck her into a duvet and never let her go if it means she stays.

She leans down, presses tearful lips to Dani’s forehead, and walks.

Taking her time.

Because this is it, really.

Water. Grass. Mud.

The sky is hovering between light and dark, and Jamie is sitting, legs in the lake.

Dani in her arms.

Dani, who still can’t move. Who can tilt her head a little and that’s about it. Who is not yet far gone enough to be able to drop into that lake without a second thought.

As Dani lies there, half her body on Jamie’s, she feels no regret. She does not cry. She does not say a word as Jamie stands with her in her arms and steps her first tentative foot in to the water.

She does not cry, or scream, barely even breathe as Jamie holds her delicately as she can under her armpits, lowering her. The water is suffocating and it is only lapping against her waist.

Jamie stands, Dani floats. Green eyes meet blue. Sobs harmonise.

“Jamie?” Dani says it like a question, a final plea, and it’s all she can do to not plead _“No, no, take me back, take us back home.”_

Jamie blinks her eyes hard, clamps her lips together to stop the cries permeating this moment. She exhales with a shaky breath, stepping back a little to shift the position, holding Dani’s back with her left arm and her legs with her right.

 _Bridal carry,_ she thinks bitterly.

Looking down, of course Dani is staring at her, her cheeks stained with so many hot tears she can almost feel them on her own face.

“Poppins, I—“

“You don’t... You don’t have to speak. If you don’t want to. Just. Let me under.” Dani’s voice shakes as she speaks and Jamie curses whichever God took away the movement in her wife’s body because she has to support her with both hands and can’t wipe away the tears that are dribbling out of her eyes again.

It’s the _let me under_ that does it for Jamie. The full realisation, her denial left at the edge of the lake, and Jamie wants to stumble backwards and hold Dani in the cold, damp grass.

She doesn’t. 

“I do want to speak,” Jamie finally forms the sentence, staring out on the surface of the lake. Knowing if she glances down at Dani for even a second she won’t be able to keep going.

“I want to speak. To you. To our life. A toast, if you will. Thirteen years with you, Dani Clayton. Undoubtedly the— the best. The best thirteen years—“ she hiccups, and catches herself chuckling, “Of my life.”

Dani is silent.

“I meant it. When I— when I said I’ll feel everything. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. But I meant it Dani, and you need to know that.” She looks down, finally, and cries bubble up in her throat, but she presses on.

“If you had never woken up like this, we’d have lived together forever.”

She can’t say the words themselves, ‘paralysed’, ‘unable to move your entire body’, but Dani knows what she means. Having taken ownership over her fate years and years ago, she knows. 

“I love you,” Dani whispers from Jamie’s arms, “And I always will. With every piece of me. Even when— when— you. It’s you. Jamie.”

Tears.

_“Jamie.”_

“Take me with you,” Jamie pleads, suddenly earnest. “We can go together. And we’ll be together.”

Dani, unable to shake her head, is repeating “no, no, no”, and Jamie knows, understands that her last ditch attempt at saving what they still have is impossible. She tries, though.

“Take me,” she mumbles.

“No.”

“Dani—“

“No. This is it. This is right. I promise you, Jamie. I want you to promise me. You live your life. You keep our— your— business, wrap those bouquets, arrange those wreaths, and _live._ And when it’s time, I’ll be here. In the next life.”

“The next life,” Jamie mumbles. She can’t manage much more. As usual, Dani knows.

Dani. She’s smiling. It’s a shaky smile, but it’s there.

“The next life. Now. Let me go.”

Those three words, they might be simultaneously the most painful yet beautiful words Jamie has heard Dani say. Because it’s there, that finality. Dani won’t say more.

One step forward. 

They are both crying.

Another step. And another.

The water is up to Jamie’s stomach now, and it is wholly covering Dani’s back. Dani, who is whimpering, fear sparking sharp in those big blue eyes Jamie has woken up to so many times.

One step forward. 

Dani’s entire unmoving body is submerged besides her head and neck and shoulders that Jamie is doing her best to hold above the surface despite her shivers.

This is it, then.

“Shut your eyes,” Dani weeps.

“Dani—“

“Please. Don’t look. Just... let me.”

“I love you.”

Dani blinks hard.

“I love you, too. Always.”

With that, Jamie does it. Clamps her eyelids together. Steps forward, one, two, three. The water is at her neck.

She wishes, with all her heart and soul that she could close her ears the way she has her eyes, so she does not have to hear the muffled sounds of the water swallowing Dani whole.

She can’t, though. 

Jamie has no idea how long she stands there, the surface of the water tickling her chin, Dani limp in her arms. Has no idea how many minutes go by with her eyes still shut, her whole body shivering with such strength she almost tips backwards in the water.

She doesn’t want to look down. But she knows she has to. Knows she has to let go, and if all of this has been painful already that is the worst part. Releasing her firm grip on Dani’s body to let it sink among the seaweed.

It’s the worst part. Jamie does it. For her. 

Because she knows she can’t carry Dani all the way back to Vermont now. Can’t leave her on the shore, either. And there is a taxi driver somewhere, waiting for her.

She lets go right as she opens her eyes with a twist of her eyebrows and a shaking breath. Watches Dani float gently to the lake bed, and it’s only then she moves something other than her arms, taking large strides backwards until she falls to the bank and breaks.

Fingers grip into soft mud as Jamie sobs in to the grass, attempting to get hyperventilating breaths under control because she really thinks she’s going to pass out if she cries anymore.

It is three hours later that Jamie Taylor leaves Bly Manor.

:: 

The flat isn’t quiet. 

It’s not what Jamie expects, but she realises she should have.

The flat isn’t quiet because all its colours scream Dani. Brightly coloured shirts and sweaters thrown over the backs of chairs. A vase of yellow tulips on the coffee table. Dani’s pink umbrella perched by the door.

With shaking hands, Jamie closes the door behind her, sliding the latch closed also. She trembles as she shuffles to the bedroom, because she needs a safe place to land.

Dani’s got her, even now. The bedroom is finally quiet. Blinds closed. Sheets still thrown back. 

Jamie tiptoes around the bed, opening the drawer on the cabinet when she reaches it, lifting out the neatly folded pink shirt Dani left there. 

As she slides it out, a pale yellow piece of paper flutters to the ground, and Jamie pays it no mind until she has removed her shirt and replaced it with Dani’s, shakily breathing in the clear scent of her wife as she leans to the carpet.

It’s a note, Jamie realises. She doesn’t know when it was written. Assumes Dani knew she would have no reason to look in her clothes drawers until... after.

A note, she thinks, as she unfolds it, lowering herself to the mattress behind her.

It’s a drawing.

One single moonflower, big and bold in the centre of the page. Underneath it, below the petals of blue biro, words.

_I’m sorry you couldn’t feel everything for both of us forever. I’ll never forget you._

Jamie, for the first time that day, that week she almost feels, smiles.

“I’ll never forget you either, Dani,” she whispers into the darkness.


End file.
